… this is how I lost with garden chairs with armrests.
– It’s great that you’re slowly getting there, I can imagine how you feel.
– We bought furniture for the garden today – I am delighted. It’s not a big deal: they are ordinary, wooden, but unique to me. Do you remember that bench we had on the balcony? We will have a similar one now. And two chairs, but one with armrests. I’m delighted. I’ve never even dared to dream for this in my life.
At first I felt warm trickles of tears on my cheeks, but immediately after them, my face wrinkled with a touch of immense strength. I couldn’t stop the emotions. The corners of my mouth consisted of a smile, but the rest of the body bring out the depths of all the lava of the grief that had been stopped so far, mixed with sadness. All these feelings, reassured for years in the depths of the soul, now flowed out with the power of the volcano.
While the thoughts began to go all the way together, the last sentence appeared to me like a neon light: I never even dared to dream for this in my life. Is it possible? Do my dreams have limits? And if so, who sets them?
And immediately a wave of memories launched several different pictures from the past.
I remember my surprised face when I heard these words, just before turning forty: And how do you think Iza, how much does my husband earn per month? This or that amount? – I replied. More. Much more. You think it’s enough? More! It’s impossible. Iza! People make this much money! That’s right – Wake up! Some of them earn a lot more per month than my husband.
My mindset was this: paper would accept everything. In other words: you can write that people make a lot of money, but if there’s no one like that among your friends, it’s probably nonsense. In that moment, my brain was distracted because it couldn’t even perform mathematical operations above certain numbers.
Then I found myself in an interview in a corporation. The last question was, “how much would you like to earn here?” My throat began to tight. Hands began to sweat. Slowly I answered: Twice as much as a chartered teacher earns.”And how much is it?” After a short while, someone on the other side of the table replied, “my mother works in education – that’s about two and a half thousand a month.” I breathed a sigh of relief.
And finally, a blissful memory of a warm day in the garden of wealthy friends. I didn’t see a single plastic chair from my block garden on the balcony. All the garden furnitures were made out of the good quality wood, and when I sat down, my tired hands could rest easy on the armrests.